I//.-  to: 


Notes  on  the  Historical  Source  Material 
in  the  Ayer  Collection  on  the  North 
A  merican  Indian  presented  by  Edward  E. 
Ayer  to  The  Newberry  Library,  Chicago 


THE  NEWBERRY  LIBRARY 

CHICAGO 
1927 


Notes  on  the  Historical  Source  Material 
in  the  Ayer  Collection  on  the  North 
A  merican  Indian  presented  by  Edward  E. 
Ayer  to  The  Newberry  Library,  Chicago 


THE  NEWBERRY  LIBRARY 
CHICAGO 

1927 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://www.archive.org/details/notesonhistoricaOOedwa 


THE  EDWARD  E.  AYER  COLLECTION 

OF  THE 

NEWBERRY  LIBRARY 

In  1911  Mr.  Edward  E.  Ayer,  a  Chicago  business 
man,  presented  to  The  Newberry  Library  his  superb 
collection  of  historical  source  material  relating  chiefly 
to  the  discovery,  exploration  and  colonization  of  this 
continent  and  to  the  native  races  of  North  America, 
the  Hawaiian  Islands  and  the  Philippine  Islands.  The 
donor  had  been  engaged  for  over  forty  years  in  the 
gathering  of  this  library  and  had  spent  thereon  lavish- 
ly of  his  time,  his  thought  and  of  his  self-made  for- 
tune. It  is  unquestionably  the  finest  and  most  exten- 
sive collection  within  its  special  field  ever  brought 
together  by  a  private  individual.  It  contains  at  pres- 
ent about  49,000  volumes,  bound  pamphlets,  manu- 
scripts, documents  and  other  accessioned  pieces. 

So  rich  is  this  special  library  in  early  printed 
editions,  in  original  manuscripts,  in  transcripts  of  un- 
published archive  material,  in  original  drawings,  pho- 
tographs and  other  pictorial  presentation  that  no 
serious  student  can  afford  to  overlook  its  resources 
or  fail  to  avail  himself  of  them,  who  is  concerned  with 
the  discovery,  settlement  and  early  history  of  Amer- 
ica, or  with  the  customs,  habits,  manners,  language 
or  history  of  the  native  races  of  North  America,  or  of 
the  Hawaiian  or  the  Philippine  Islands. 


56974 


Notes  on  the  Ayer  Collection 


In  order,  therefore,  that  students  of  these  sub- 
jects may  know  more  generally  of  the  existence  and 
of  the  free  availability  of  this  rich  store  of  source 
material  the  following  brief  notes  regarding  some 
of  the  outstanding  groups  in  the  collection  are  here 
set  down  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Ayer,  and  sent  to 
a  select  number  of  colleges,  universities,  public  and 
reference  libraries,  and  other  kindred  institutions. 

While  the  North  American  Indian  is  the  central 
figure  and  objective  point  of  the  Edward  E.  Ayer  Col- 
lection, it  includes  of  necessity  many  books  which  may 
easily  be  classed  under  other  subjects,  some  books  in 
which  the  reference  to  the  Indian,  or  to  America,  is 
so  slight  that  under  the  usual  classification  that  ref- 
erence would  be  lost. 

Geography:  Included  in  this  section  are  many 
early  books  on  cosmography  as  well  as  geography,  all 
with  more  or  less  reference  to  America;  atlases  and 
maps,  both  manuscript  and  printed,  the  former  in- 
cluding thirteen  portolan  atlases  and  eleven  portolan 
charts,  all  exceedingly  valuable  material  for  the  early 
history  and  development  of  cartography;  also  early 
voyages  and  travels.  (1,900  volumes  and  about  450 
manuscript  maps  and  180  trips  across  the  plains, 
either  printed  or  in  manuscript.*) 

Spanish  North  America:  This  section  includes  the 
early  history  of  the  discovery,  the  conquest  and  the 

*To  give  the  reader  a  general  knowledge  of  the  size  and 
therefore  relative  importance  of  the  various  groups  here  men- 
tioned the  approximate  number  of  volumes  in  each  is  recorded. 


The  Newberry  Library 


settlement  of  Mexico,  Central  America,  the  West  In- 
dies, and  Florida,  Texas,  New  Mexico,  California,  and 
the  Spanish  period  in  Louisiana.     (1,200  volumes) 

Supplementing  the  volumes  in  this  section  are 
many  original  manuscripts  and  about  200,000  type- 
written pages  of  transcripts  from  the  Spanish  and 
Mexican  archives. 

French  Colonies  in  America:  Includes  Canada  and 
Newfoundland,  the  early  exploration  of  the  Mississip- 
pi Valley  and  the  founding  of  Louisiana.  This  section 
also  is  supplemented  by  many  original  manuscripts 
and  by  transcripts  relating  to  the  fur  trade  from  the 
archives  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  (800  vol- 
umes) 

English,  Dutch  and  Swedish  Colonies  in  America: 
As  the  colonists  from  both  Holland  and  Sweden  soon 
became  merged  with  the  English,  they  are  for  con- 
venience of  classification  grouped  together  here,  and 
this  grouping  follows  them  not  only  through  their 
Colonial  life,  but  in  their  conquest,  exploration  and 
settlement  of  the  country  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to 
the  Golden  Gate.    (2,700  volumes) 

Indian  Warfare:  In  this  section  are  included 
books  relating  to  the  French  and  Indian  Wars,  the 
American  Revolution,  the  War  of  1812,  the  various 
colonial  wars,  and  later  the  Indian  warfare  with  the 
United  States.  Here  are  included  430  volumes  contain- 
ing narratives  of  Indian  captivity,  and  70  volumes  con- 
taining Indian  treaties.  There  are  also  several  manu- 
script treaties.     (800  volumes) 


Notes  on  the  Ayer  Collection 


Indians  of  North  America — Their  Origin,  Prehis- 
toric Life  and  History:  In  this  section  are  grouped 
the  books  treating-  of  the  origin  of  the  Indians,  all  the 
way  from  the  point  of  view  of  those  who  considered 
them  the  descendants  of  the  ten  lost  tribes  of  Israel, 
to  that  of  the  modern  scientific  anthropologist.  The 
fascinating  story  of  their  prehistoric  life  is  just  be- 
ginning to  be  unraveled  and  told,  and  every  year 
brings  new  revelations  from  archaeologists  in  all 
parts  of  the  country.  The  history  of  many  tribes  is 
yet  to  be  wrritten  and  much  can  be  done  from  sources 
found  here.  Under  this  grouping  are  books  dealing 
also  of  the  following  matters:  Indian  arts  and  indus- 
tries, trade,  money,  mythology  and  religion  (including 
ceremonies  and  dances),  music,  physical  anthropology, 
health  and  disease,  missions  and  schools,  and  the  biog- 
raphies of  individual  Indians.     (3,000  volumes) 

Indian  Languages  and  Graphic  Systems:  One 
hundred  and  eighty-eight  different  languages  or  dia- 
lects are  represented  in  the  Ayer  Collection.  The 
books  illustrating  or  treating  of  them  include  gram- 
mars and  grammatical  treatises,  vocabularies  and  dic- 
tionaries, and  some  few  school  books;  translations  of 
the  Bible,  prayer  books  and  catechisms ;  all  very  large- 
ly done  by  missionaries,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant. 
Of  more  recent  date  are  books  containing  folk-lore 
and  myths  with  both  free  and  literal  translations. 
Supplementing  these  are  some  55  original  manu- 
scripts, and  50,000  pages  of  photographic  copies  of 
manuscripts,  principally  in  the  Mayan  and  allied  lan- 
guages.    The  graphic  systems  are  represented  (1)  by 


The  Newberry  Library 


two  volumes  and  eight  single  Aztec  pictographic  draw- 
ings on  maguey  paper;  (2)  by  125  volumes  of  repro- 
ductions of  ancient  codices  and  their  decipherment. 
(2,200  volumes) 

Hawaiian  Islands:  In  the  year  1898  the  Edward 
E.  Ayer  Collection  fell  heir  (through  their  acquisition 
by  the  United  States)  to  the  primitive  inhabitants  of 
both  the  Hawaiian  and  the  Philippine  Islands.  The 
Hawaiian  Collection  contains  most  of  the  early  ac- 
counts and  relations  of  the  missionaries  of  the  Amer- 
ican Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions, 
who  made  its  history.  (About  225  volumes  of  this 
historical  material  and  about  250  volumes  in  the  Ha- 
waiian language). 

Philippine  Islands:  Upon  receiving  the  news  of 
Dewey's  victory  in  Manila  Bay,  the  first  book  on  the 
Philippine  Islands  was  ordered.  Within  a  short  time 
all  the  principal  sources  for  the  Spanish  period  of 
Philippine  history  were  in  the  Ayer  Collection.  The 
American  period  is  not  so  strong.  The  printed  books 
(about  900  volumes)  are  supplemented  by  some  200 
manuscripts  and  illustrated  by  nearly  8,000  photo- 
graphs, representing  thirty-eight  various  groups. 

In  this  section  on  the  Philippine  Islands  there  are 
18  different  languages  represented,  contained  in  about 
525  volumes. 

Illustrations:  The  illustrative  material  of  the 
collection  is  equally  interesting.  There  are  forty-eight 
oil  paintings  including  two  by   Charles   Bird   King, 


Notes  on  the  Ayer  Collection 


painted  about  1820,  and  one  by  Grace  Hudson.  The 
rest  are  by  Elbridge  Ayer  Burbank.  In  the  collection 
are  1232  red  chalk  drawings  of  Western  Indians  from 
life,  also  by  Burbank;  900  water  color  drawings; 
600  black  and  white  (pencil,  ink,  etc.)  drawings;  300 
colored  drawings  by  Indians;  3000  photographs  of 
American  Indians,  and  about  400  prints  of  the  peoples 
of  the  Philippine  Islands,  in  addition  to  the  photo- 
graphs referred  to  in  the  preceding  paragraph. 


The  Newberry  Library,  including  its  Edward  E. 
Ayer  Collection,  contains  450,000  volumes,  and  as  His- 
tory, Literature,  and,  to  a  lesser  degree  Philology,  are 
the  chief  subjects  in  its  scope,  its  other  collections 
supplement  in  varying  degrees  of  importance  the 
source  material  in  the  Ayer  Collection.  This  is  especi- 
ally the  case  in  the  American  Revolution,  the  War  of 
1812  and  the  expansion  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 
BY  FIELD  MUSEUM  PRESS 


